For The Longest Time, I Felt Like I Was Seeing Things That Nobody Else Could See.
I Would Notice A Number, A Name, A Picture, A Scripture, A Random Conversation, Or Some Little Detail That Seemed To Connect To Something From My Past. Then I Would Send It To Somebody Like, “Look At This!” 😂
And Most Of The Time, People Would Look At Me Like I Was Doing Too Much.
But I Kept Writing Things Down.
I Kept Taking Screenshots.
I Kept Saving Pictures.
I Kept Noticing Patterns.
And I Kept Saying, “I’m Telling Y’all, Look At This!”
Meanwhile, Everybody Else Was Like… “Girl…” 😭😂
But What They Didn’t Understand Was That I Wasn’t Trying To Convince Everybody That Every Number Had Some Huge Meaning. I Was Trying To Understand My Own Story.
I’ve Always Been Somebody Who Notices Little Things.
Maybe It’s A Number.
Maybe It’s A Name.
Maybe It’s Something I Read In The Bible.
Maybe It’s A Conversation I Had Years Ago That Suddenly Makes Sense In A Completely Different Season Of My Life.
And Sometimes The Thing I Thought Was Random Would Circle Right Back Around.
That’s What Made Me Pay Attention.
I Started Realizing That Some Of The Things I Had Been Talking About For Years Were Suddenly Showing Up Again In Different Ways.
The Same Numbers.
The Same Names.
The Same Themes.
The Same Scriptures.
The Same Questions.
And Sometimes I Would Look At My Old Pictures Or Messages And Say, “WAIT A DAMN MINUTE…” 😂
Because There It Was.
I Had Already Written It Down.
I Had Already Talked About It.
I Had Already Sent Somebody The Picture.
I Had Already Told Somebody What I Was Seeing.
And Then Months Or Years Later, Something Would Happen That Made Me Look Back At That Old Moment Differently.
That’s When I Started Understanding Why Mr. Hanna Always Taught Me To Write Things Down.
At The Time, I Was Just A Student Taking Notes.
Now I Understand That Writing Things Down Helped Me Keep Track Of My Own Story.
Because When Life Gets Complicated, Memory Can Get Messy.
But The Notebook Doesn’t Lie About What You Saw, What You Felt, Or What You Were Thinking At The Time.
So Maybe Everybody Didn’t Understand What I Was Seeing.
Maybe Sometimes I Didn’t Understand It Either.
But I Kept Writing.
I Kept Asking Questions.
I Kept Praying.
I Kept Looking For Understanding.
And Most Importantly, I Learned That I Didn’t Have To Make Everybody Else Understand Something Before I Could Admit That It Was Meaningful To Me.
Everybody Thought I Was Crazy.
And Maybe I Was A Little Crazy. 😂
But I Was Also Paying Attention.
And Sometimes The Things We Pay Attention To Become The Threads That Help Us Understand Where We’ve Been.
I’m Still Learning What Every Thread Means.
But I’m Not Throwing Away The Whole Tapestry Just Because Somebody Else Can’t See The Picture Yet.
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Photo credit: Image provided by the storyteller.
